Kathleen Lawlor, Ph.D.

Kathleen Lawlor, Ph.D.

Director of MS in Environmental Resilience, Associate Professor of Economics

Office: 152 Karpen Hall
Phone: (828) 250-3983
Email: klawlor@unca.edu

Dr. Kathleen Lawlor is Associate Professor of Economics and Director of the MS in Environmental Resilience. An applied microeconomist, her research investigates the impacts of public policies on a range of environment and development outcomes, with a focus on how climate and development policies affect local communities, forests, and ecosystem services. She has examined the impacts of tropical forest carbon projects on local communities’ land rights and income, how cash transfers contribute to rural farming households’ climate resilience, and, most recently, the impacts of Asheville’s urban renewal projects on displacement and household wealth.

Prior to academia, Dr. Lawlor worked on international environment and development policy with numerous organizations. She has worked for an independent accountability mechanism of the World Bank Group, investigating project-affected communities’ claims of human rights violations and social and environmental harms, for a think tank at Duke University on international climate and forest policy, and with farmers in Cameroon on agroforestry and HIV/AIDS education as a Peace Corps Volunteer. She remains engaged in applied policy work, advising both local and global organizations on how to evaluate and improve their social impacts.

Dr. Lawlor’s courses emphasize the power of the economic approach to causal inference and how economic theory and evidence can be harnessed to fight poverty and environmental degradation through public policy.

Education

• Ph.D., Public Policy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• M.E.M., Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University
• B.A., The College of William & Mary

Teaching

• Econ 103 Introductory Economic Analysis
• ECON 274 Race and Economic Opportunity
• Econ 317 Poverty and Human Capital
• Econ 339 Environmental and Natural Resource Economics and Policy
• Econ 365 Econometrics
• Econ 372 Monitoring and Evaluation for Social Impact
• Econ 450 Environment and Development Economics
• Econ 480 Senior Research in Economics
• MSER 502 Climate Resilience Foundations: Theory and Practice
• MSER 511: Practicum I: Internship and Research Proposal
• MSER 599: Practicum II: Applied Research Project

Publications

Visit my Google Scholar page for more information.

Fraser, J. and K. Lawlor. 2026. The Significance of 20^th-Century Urban Renewal Policies for Racially Reparative Planning. Chp. 6 in The Performative City: An Approach to the Study of Urban Policy, D. Oakley and J.C. Fraser (Eds.). Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press, p.79-96.

Pfau, A., K. Lawlor, D. Hochfelder, and S. Kinlock Sewell. 2024. Using Urban Renewal Records to Advance Reparative Justice. RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, Special Issue on Black Reparations: Insights from the Social Sciences (Eds., William Darity Jr., Thomas Craemer, Daina Ramey Berry, and Dania V. Francis), 10(2): 113-131.

Lawlor, K. 2022. Incentives, Institutions, and Inequality: A Pluralist Approach to Teaching Environmental and Natural Resource Economics. Chp. 5 in Teaching Environmental and Natural Resource Economics: Paradigms and Pedagogy, Bergstrom, J.C. and Whitehead, J.C. (Eds.). Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing. p.102-129.

Lawlor, K., S. Handa, B. Davis, and D. Seidenfeld. 2020. Poverty-environment relationships under market heterogeneity: Cash transfers and rural livelihoods in Zambia. Environment and Development Economics, 25(3): 291-314.

Lawlor, K., Sills, E.O., S. Atmadja, L. Lin, and K. Songwathana. 2019. SDG #1: No Poverty – Impacts of Social Protection, Tenure Security, and Building Resilience on Forests. Chp. 1 in Sustainable Development Goals: Their Impacts on Forests and People, Katila, P., C.J.P. Colfer, W. de Jong, G. Galloway, P. Pacheco, and G. Winkel (Eds.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Lawlor, K., S. Handa, and D. Seidenfeld. 2019. Cash transfers enable households to cope with agricultural production and price shocks: Evidence from Zambia. Journal of Development Studies, 55:2, 209-226.

Sills, E.O., C. de Sassi, P. Jagger, K. Lawlor, D.A. Miteva, S.K. Pattanayak, W.D. Sunderlin. 2017. Building the evidence base for REDD+: Study design and methods for evaluating the impacts of conservation interventions on local well-being. Global Environmental Change 43: 148-160.

Jagger, P., M. Brockhaus, A.E. Duchelle, M.F. Gebara, K. Lawlor, I.A.P. Resosudarmo, W.D. Sunderlin. 2014. Multi-level Policy Dialogues and Actions: Challenges and Opportunities for National REDD+ Safeguards Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV). Forests 5(9): 2136-2162.

Lawlor, K. and S. Swan. 2014. Mainstreaming multiple benefits in subnational land-use planning: Sourcebook for REDD+ and sustainable landscapes. SNV – The Netherlands Development Organization. Ho Chi Minh City.

Lawlor, K. 2013. Methods for assessing and evaluating social impacts of program-level REDD+. Report for USAID’s Forest Carbon, Markets, and Communities Program. TetraTech: Arlington, VA.

Lawlor, K., E. Myers-Madeira, J. Blockhus, D. Ganz. 2013. Community participation and benefits in REDD+: A review of initial outcomes and lessons. Forests 4: 296-318.

Jagger, P., K. Lawlor, M. Brockhaus, M.F. Gebara, D.J. Sonwa, I.A.P. Resosudarmo. 2012. REDD+ safeguards in national policy discourse and pilot projects. Chapter in Analysing REDD+: Challenges and choices. Edited by Angelsen, A. CIFOR: Bogor, Indonesia.

Ferraro, P., K. Lawlor, K. Mullan, and S.K. Pattanayak. 2011. Forest figures: A review of ecosystem services valuation and policy evaluation in developing countries. Review of Environmental Economics and Policy 6(1): 20-44.

Caplow, S., P. Jagger, K. Lawlor, and E.O. Sills. 2011. Evaluating land use and livelihood impacts of early forest carbon projects: Lessons for learning about REDD+. Environmental Science and Policy 14: 152-167.

Lawlor, K., E. Weinthal, and L.P. Olander. 2010. Institutions and policies to protect rural livelihoods in REDD+ regimes. Global Environmental Politics 10(4): 1-11.

Jagger, P., E. Sills, K. Lawlor, and W. Sunderlin. 2010. Guide to learning about livelihood impacts of REDD+ projects. CIFOR: Bogor, Indonesia.